The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (13 page)

One afternoon, I rushed from lunch to meet up with Thomas at Gwendolyn as planned, and was confused when I saw him walking toward me on the quad. His face was wan and his expression distracted, his eyes darting from face to face. I figured he was looking for me and lifted my hand to get his attention, but he blew right by me.

“Thomas?”

He stopped and turned around. Every movement was sharp and deliberate, his casual demeanor gone.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t talk right now,” he said.

“But I thought we—”

“I can’t,” he repeated firmly. Then he glanced around and took a couple steps closer to me. He lowered his voice. “You haven’t seen my phone, have you?”

“Your cell? No. Why?” I asked, baffled.

“What the hell could I have done with it?” he blurted, turning away. He covered his mouth with both hands set in a steeple and looked across the campus, racking his brain. “I have to find it,” he said, starting off again.

“I’ll help you,” I said, scurrying after him.

“No.”

His response was so harsh it made me stop in my tracks. Thomas saw my face and sighed. “This is my problem. Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Just go to class and I’ll . . . catch up with you later.”

I tried not to let the depth of my disappointment show in my eyes. I had been looking forward to hooking up with him all morning. But I could tell that he was clearly wigged about losing his phone. I wasn’t about to guilt him over it.

Besides, waiting would just make our next meeting that much more intense. I could cope with that.

“I hope you find it,” I said as he walked away.

He didn’t even seem to hear me.

The entire Croton Municipal Library could have fit in the foyer of the Easton Library. Apparently Mitchell Easton, who founded the school with his brother Micah back in the day, was a huge bibliophile. He had traveled around the world gathering original texts to fill the shelves of his beloved library, the construction of which he had overseen himself. Or so I had read on the bronze plaque near the front door while I waited for Taylor to show up for our first study session that night. Upon arriving fifteen minutes late, Taylor had apologized, explaining that she had been on the phone with her little sister, pep-talking her for musical auditions at her school back in Indiana. Until that moment, I had no idea Taylor was from the Midwest and now I felt a definite kinship with her. I was not the only person around here who had not grown up in New York, Boston, Chicago, or L.A.

“Mr. Barber likes to think he has us all shaking in our shoes, but last year I figured out his pattern,” she whispered to me across the wide, gleaming, oak table we had commandeered in the stacks. The
place was deathly quiet, the only sound the whirring of a far-off copy machine somewhere near the back wall.

“His pattern?” I whispered, leaning forward.

Taylor smiled mischievously and I realized she was in her element. She was a lot more confident, playful, and talkative here among the books than she was among her friends.

“Everyone thinks his weekly quizzes are killers, but I guarantee you I can predict almost every question he asks,” Taylor said, opening my history book to chapter six and turning it toward me on the table. “He takes all his questions from the third sentences of paragraphs within the required reading.” She used her pencil’s eraser as a pointer. “Here. ‘On July 12, 1812, General Hull and his troops crossed into Canada at Sandwich.’” She read upside down faster than I did right side up. “That’s the third sentence of a paragraph. You can forget about everything else after that. Just memorize that information and you’ll be fine.”

“No way,” I said, sliding the book toward me.

“Trust me. If you don’t get at least a ninety-two on his next quiz, you can take it out on me,” she said.

I smiled and opened up my notebook so I could start making lists. I felt as if someone had just handed me a limit-free charge card. That’s how excited I was to show Mr. Barber up.

“I think I might love you,” I told Taylor.

She laughed and was clearly pleased. “Get all that info down and then we’ll talk about how to impress Miss Krantz,” Taylor said, pulling a romance novel out of her bag. “Woman has a thing for oral
reports about food. I have no idea why. I don’t think she’s eaten a real meal since the Clinton administration.”

I laughed.

“Aren’t you going to study?” I asked, eyeing her well-worn book.

“Remember what Noelle said about me having done the whole semester’s work?” she said.

I nodded.

“She wasn’t kidding.”

Damn.

I opened my notebook and was about to get to work when Taylor’s cell phone vibrated on the table. She glanced at it and rolled her eyes.

“It’s for you,” she said.

My brow creased, but I took the phone. The text message read: “smarter yet glasslicker?”

I snorted a laugh. I put my pen down and texted back “almost.”

The moment I placed the phone down, it vibrated again. Taylor shot it an irritated look. This time the text read: “y dont u have ur own phone? r u a loser?’

I flushed and texted back “not allowed.” More like “have no money.” But she didn’t need to know that.

The response was almost instantaneous: “have 2 fx that.”

Whatever that meant. I placed the phone down and it vibrated again. Taylor clucked her tongue and picked it up. She texted back furiously.

“What did you say?” I asked, hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t get Noelle mad at me.

“I just reminded her that if we didn’t get your grades up, they’d send you home. And she doesn’t want that to happen.”

Really? Well, that was . . . interesting. Hard to believe that Noelle could possibly care whether I was here or not, but good to hear.

I smiled, flattered and somewhat relieved. But a second later, the phone vibrated again. I grabbed it playfully before Taylor could get to it, then was appalled at my own audacity. This wasn’t my phone, and Noelle might be writing something private to Taylor. I was about to hand it back when I saw the text was not from Noelle. It was from Thomas. Apparently he had found his phone. My heart sunk. Why was Thomas texting Taylor? But in the next second I realized that this message, too, was for me.

“New grl: ketlar common room. 8pm. b there.” An invite to the guys’ dorm. From Thomas. This day just kept getting more and more interesting. Taylor must have noticed my elated expression because she grabbed the phone out of my hand. She glanced at the message, scoffed, and turned off the phone.

“You can play with your boyfriend when you’re done with your work,” she said in a faux-mom tone.

I snorted a laugh. She smiled. I could think about Noelle and her plans later. If I didn’t do this work now, I might never get the chance to find out what they were.

Of course, who knew if that would be a good thing or a bad thing?

When I arrived at Ketlar that night, Thomas took my hand and led me right through the common room and down the hallway toward his dorm room. He opened the door and stood there, waiting for me to go in. Beyond the threshold, I saw two beds made with dark spreads. One side of the room was messy and covered with art supplies, an easel standing in the corner. The other side was almost pathologically neat with a variety of electronics glowing and whirring in the darkness. The only light came from a small, green desk lamp.

“What’re we doing?” I asked, my pulse racing with both trepidation and excitement.

“Go in,” Thomas said.

I hesitated. This was so very against the rules.

“Go in,” Thomas repeated, this time a touch more firmly. My pulse skipped and prodded me over the threshold. Thomas closed the door behind us and we were alone. In his room. I was alone in a boy’s dorm room with the door closed.

“What are we doing?’ I said again.

“I’m sorry I missed today,” he said, taking my hand and kissing it. “I wanted to make it up to you.”

My heart thumped, but I turned away. He wasn’t actually suggesting we hook up here. Now. In his room. A girl could get expelled for this type of thing. I picked up his cell from his desk, stalling for time.

“I see you found this,” I said. “Where was it?”

Just then, another cell phone bleeped. I glanced at Josh’s side of the room, but then Thomas whipped a second phone out of his pocket.

“Hang on,” he told me. He flipped the phone open and turned away from me. “Pearson.”

I stared down at the phone in my hand. He had two? Why did he have two? Wasn’t
one
extravagant enough? And if it was always with you, you would never need another.

“No. Yeah. That’s fine,” Thomas said quickly into the phone. “I’ll be there.”

Then he snapped the phone closed and sighed. “Sorry,” he said, tucking the second cell into the pocket of his suede jacket, which hung off his closet door. “That was Lawrence and Trina.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“The elder regents,” he explained. “They’re the only ones that have that number.”

“Because . . . ?”

“They pay for it. That was why I freaked when I lost it. I had to get
a new one activated before they found out. My parents already think I’m irresponsible enough.”

Ah.
So it was this other, parental phone that had gone missing. He leaned over and plucked the first cell from my fingers. “This one
I
pay for. This is the number all the important people get.”

He reached by me and placed it back on the desk. He was inches away. “I don’t need my parents checking out my bill and prying into my life,” he said, looking deep into my eyes. “It’s just easier this way.”

I felt sorry for him. That he had to go so far to separate himself from these people who were supposed to love him. Of course, I had to move hundreds of miles away for the same reason.

“Have you decided what to do? About parents’ weekend?” I asked, looking down at my fingers.

He took a deep breath and blew it out. “No. You?”

My heart hurt whenever I thought about my father. He had mentioned it on the phone once or twice since he’d first brought it up. That he’d received an invitation. That they were excited about it. Personally, I couldn’t imagine my mother being excited about anything, let alone anything that had to do with me. But the guilt whenever I thought about telling him to stay away was overwhelming.

“No,” I admitted.

“You know what? I don’t want to talk about this,” Thomas said lightly. “I asked you here because I knew you’d had a long day and I thought I’d help you destress.”

He smiled and stepped behind me. Slowly he slid my jacket off
and let it fall to the ground. My breath caught in my throat as he placed his hands on my shoulders. Softly, he touched my neck with his lips and my eyes fluttered closed. A thrill of anticipation rushed through me. There was so much wrong with this that it made me want to be there even more.

Thomas tugged slightly on my shoulder and I turned around. We kissed deeply—slowly at first. I trembled as I grasped at the back of his shirt, holding on. I was all nerves and excitement and curiosity and I just wanted to keep touching him. He held me tightly in his arms and pulled me closer and closer into him until I heard a noise in the hallway and jumped away.

He stepped forward and took my hand, tugging me toward the neat-as-a-pin bed. “It’s okay,” he said. “No one’s coming down here. I promise.”

“How do you know?” I asked, my heart pounding in my throat.

“I have ways,” Thomas replied.

He pulled me down on his bed and my leg hooked over his. He slid his hands underneath my hair and pulled me to him. His kiss was urgent. Almost violent. And I knew for sure what he wanted. Why I was there.

He slid his hands under my shirt and my breath caught in anticipation. But to my surprise, his palms stopped on my stomach. He pulled back and looked into my eyes.

“You know I love you, right?” he whispered.

I was so shocked I almost laughed.

“You don’t have to say that,” I said.

Briefly, anger flashed through his eyes. “I’m not lying. I love you. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.”

Yeah, right.

Then I saw the sincerity in his eyes, and felt guilty for my disloyal thoughts. Okay. Did he want me to tell him I loved him back?
Did
I love him back? I had no idea. Should I say it if I wasn’t sure? Would he flip out if I didn’t?

“I—”

“Don’t say anything,” Thomas said. “It’s okay. I just want to be with you.”

I swallowed hard. In that moment I knew. I knew that I was going to give him what he wanted. I was going to give him everything.

“Okay,” I said.

And he smiled and kissed me, leaning me slowly backward onto his bed.

It was done. My virginity. Officially gone. Lost. Given away. As I walked up the hill to soccer practice the next day, I tried to wrap my brain around it. Tried to decide how I felt about it. In all my life I had never thought that I would be a person who just let it happen. I always thought there would be build-up, conversations, long, agonizing decisions. But instead, I had just gone with it. I had just made the decision in the moment and let it happen. In a way, I was proud of myself that I’d been so bold. But on the other hand, I knew it was perhaps not the wisest move in the world. Letting something that big just happen was very unlike me.

But whenever I thought of Thomas’s hands, his kiss, his scent, I smiled and shivered and wished I was with him again. Alone. In his room in the dark. And that was all I needed to make any misgivings fade to the background. Thomas and I had been together. He was my first. There was no going back now.

And I liked that idea.

Of course, there were a million things to consider now. Should I get birth control? Could I be the kind of girl who carried condoms
around in her backpack? And where the hell would one even get that kind of thing in this cloistered place?

“What’s eating you, glass-licker?” Noelle asked, jogging to catch up with me.

I flinched, feeling as if I had just been caught. An answer. An answer. I needed an answer.